


and you may ask yourself, well, how did i get here?

by silver_and_exact



Series: I feel like shit but look great [4]
Category: American Psycho - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Fingering, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Blow Jobs, Control Issues, Fix-It, Gay Panic, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Idiots in Love, Internalized Homophobia, Light Masochism, M/M, No murder, Porn with Feelings, Porn with minimal Plot, Praise Kink, Romance, Secret Relationship, That Whole Yale Thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:02:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23054395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver_and_exact/pseuds/silver_and_exact
Summary: Patrick Bateman is horrified when he realizes that he has only been seeing one person.  Pornography ensues.Can be read as a standalone fic or a continuation.  Exponentially fluffier than one would expect, given the source material.
Relationships: Patrick Bateman/Paul Owen, Paul Allen/Patrick Bateman
Series: I feel like shit but look great [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/475216
Comments: 10
Kudos: 56





	and you may ask yourself, well, how did i get here?

It took until the fifth time Patrick Bateman lied to Courtney, and after that, telling someone else he’d been lying to Courtney, before he realized he had a serious problem.

He'd still been seeing her semi-regularly. Courtney had more or less lingered in New York while Luis had begun his move to Arizona, a drawn-out process of shuttling back and forth between states that seemed to hinge upon his continued ability to cast wistful glances at Patrick, who doubted the relocation would ever truly end, and ever since the whole thing had started, she'd been more fucked up on pills than ever. 

It wasn't uncommon now for Courtney to pass out while they were still at dinner, at the theater, or one harrowing time when she'd actually made it, semi-lucid and pawing listlessly at Patrick's lapels, all the way into a cab en route to her house. It was easy enough for Patrick to carry her home, lie her in her bed and muss up the sheets and her hair a little. He'd artfully slip a strap from the shoulder of her dress, she'd assume they'd had sex, and Patrick let her carry on with that assumption. He even acted annoyed that she’d forgotten, for authenticity’s sake.

One evening, Bateman was reclined in bed smoking one of Paul Allen's cigarettes—a habit he'd adopted only after sex, since it was extremely atmospheric. They'd been messing around at the other man’s place and Paul had briefly touched him somewhere that was not strictly heterosexual (whatever this arrangement was that they had going on, it had been blowjob and handjob-exclusive up to this point, which didn't really count, but Patrick reasoned that the other man was probably an idiot, so his hand must've slipped, and yeah, the fact that he'd climaxed too hard & too fast immediately upon being touched was sort of weird, admittedly, but it was because he was taken off guard, not because he was particularly into it.) 

But he had mostly gotten over it or blocked it out, and Paul was in the shower, and he sort of felt like he should shower, but he didn't want to reveal that he couldn't use someone else's soap without having a panic attack. So instead he was smoking, his thoughts pleasantly fuzzy, and it occurred to him how amusing it was that Courtney believed that they were still having sex, and that Paul would also likely find this funny. 

He heard the patter of the shower turn off, and soon the other man was emerging from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, rivulets of water snaking down his abdomen, and wow, the cigarette was suddenly making Patrick’s mouth really dry. He ignored it and cleared his throat.

"So get this—" he gestured with the cigarette for emphasis, "Courtney still thinks we're fucking because she passed out a couple times while I was around. Have I ever told you that her husband was convinced that he and I were... soulmates? You know, Carruthers? God, that fucking guy would not let it _go_.”

Patrick had a vivid, terrible recollection of Luis, incognito, trailing him through the menswear department of Barney's, falling at his feet, wailing inconsolably about their doomed love. His amusement in relaying the story soured slightly. 

"Huh. You're not fucking Courtney?" Paul said mildly, toweling his hair, which was pretty long when it wasn't styled, not that Patrick really noticed. 

Because all at once, his stomach dropped, his insides unraveled and spiraled across the floor, his blood froze into huge stalactites of ice that pierced his skin from the inside and bristled out in every direction. Why _wasn’t_ he still fucking Courtney? He was basically… monogamous. With a man. With Paul Allen, who was a man and also listened to Journey. There was a word for all of this, and he didn’t like it. 

“I’m not like Luis,” Bateman said abruptly, stabbing the half-smoked cigarette into an ashtray and suddenly feeling very much like he was lying in another man’s bed, though he was still mostly clothed, thank god. Paul put his hands up in a placating gesture. All it really did was accentuate his arms, which were… toned, and it made Patrick angry. 

“Woah, Bateman. Relax. I know you’re not like Luis,” he said, voice laden with scorn, “Christ, I swear I saw that guy wearing _white socks_ with his suit once.”

White socks? What was he even talking about? Patrick wasn’t processing language outside of the possible fact that he was… _seeing_ Paul Allen, and also that Paul had assumed he was fucking Courtney and didn’t particularly care. Which was fine. Paul was probably fucking other people—was Paul fucking other people? Okay. Paul wasn’t fucking him, either, it was just… blowjobs. With mouths. Women had them. 

He gathered up his suitcoat and belt from the floor around the bed (how had they gotten on the _floor_ , oh my _god_ ), abortively attempting to look calm. He didn’t know why he had stuck around after said blowjobs were over, or why he had gone to the other man’s apartment at all instead of just spending the evening at his own place with his own CDs, which were definitely not Journey.

“Of course I’m not like _Luis, Paul_ ,” snapped Patrick harshly, incredulously, as if he hadn’t been the one to suggest the comparison in the first place. He began methodically buttoning his shirt. He had to get out of here.

Patrick was sitting on the edge of the bed. Paul was moving toward him, and somehow it hadn’t registered until now that the other man was completely unclothed, and that he’d unwrapped the towel from around his waist earlier to dry his hair and had now abandoned it entirely. They didn’t do that—Patrick’s shirt was unbuttoned, but it was on. His belt was somewhere on the floor, but his pants had never been less than a quarter of the way off the whole time he’d been there, and that meant he was basically clothed. They always mostly wore all of their clothes and he was not in love with Paul Allen. 

As if.

“Patrick. Listen to me,” Paul murmured. He’d reached the edge of the bed. Patrick’s heart felt like a block of knives that had been vacated, the knives now doing speed runs through his body with wild, suicidal abandon. Like racecars. Like knife-racecars. His metaphors were mixing. He was fucking everything up. He looked down despite himself and saw Paul’s dick, really _saw_ it, and of course he’d _seen_ it before, but now it kind of paralyzed him, which was so stupid. But he must’ve moved backward, and his body was a fucking traitor, because now Paul was straddling him, his knees on the mattress, surprisingly long hair dripping on his Valentino button-down, and he leaned down, whispered in his ear.

“Listen. I’m glad you’re not fucking Courtney.”

“I’m not fucking Evelyn either,” he disclosed, pained. The icicles shattered and diffused into a prickling something that didn't quite feel good or bad. Just a sharp, restless discomfort that needed to be quelled.

“Good,” Paul said, not even smug, just honest, his mouth finding the pulse point on Patrick’s neck and biting down softly. Patrick made a sound, then, a thin gasp, a frisson of arousal shooting through his blood. There was something desperate in it, something small and lost that he didn’t want to analyze. He wanted him, and what he wanted was always monstrous. But he wanted him. 

“Take this off,” the other man said, softly but firmly, his fingers tugging the collar of Patrick's shirt. 

“I—okay, uh, listen, I think that I might—” He wasn’t sure what he was about to say, but he had a few ideas, and they were all catastrophic.

“Patrick. I know. Now take your fucking shirt off, I want to see you.”

Patrick shivered, Paul’s thumbs in his beltloops, Paul’s mouth on his jawline, on his mouth. One hand moving from his waist to skate carefully across his ribs as Patrick’s own hands somehow managed to undo the last button. 

Patrick discarded his shirt, momentarily becoming trapped in the fabric, and he was not _clumsy,_ this was ridiculous. Paul touched him almost scientifically, deliberately, running his fingers over his well-muscled abdomen, his nipples, which pebbled at the touch. They kissed, Paul’s tongue languidly stroking his own. He was suddenly, impossibly turned on. When Patrick tried to speed things up, frantic, his nerve endings humming, Paul pushed him back, held his wrists at either side of his head. Desire crashed, flooded downward from the point of contact. 

“Stay here tonight,” he said, looking into his eyes intently. The other man’s blue eyes were shot black with need, belying his measured voice.

“Sure, yeah,” Patrick replied dumbly. Paul gently released his wrists, shifted from on top of him, and said calmly, like they were discussing the fucking stock market,

“Now take your pants off, Patrick, and lie down.”

Patrick did what the other man asked, any illusion that he had the smallest bit of control—that he _wanted_ to have control—slipping away. Shame tattooed itself across his chest and crawled into his face with a red flush. He closed his eyes.

“You’re so fucking good,” Paul murmured, running a hand down his side, stroking his thigh. Pointedly ignoring the painful hardness that felt disastrously urgent. “So good. God, Patrick, I’m going to _ruin_ you.”

Something hysterical, primal, had been pushing against his throat, and now his eyes opened alongside his mouth like they were connected, a gasp that became a moan that entered his own ears and travelled swiftly to his cock. He felt dizzy, his blood drained and rerouted. He vaguely drew comparison to a business trip, years ago, in Oahu, when he’d swam a bit too quickly to the surface during a diving lesson. 

Then, Paul’s mouth made contact with his cock, tongue firmly laving clean the beads of precum that shone, glossy and slick, against the darkened head, and Patrick stopped thinking about Oahu.

They’d done this before, of course, nights untangling from the backs of cabs, tipsy and laughing, barely making it through the elevator trip to either of their apartments. Hell, they’d just done this an hour or so before. But this was different, somehow. The earth had stopped its terrible spinning, the blurred streaks of the universe were solidifying into things that felt like they could begin making sense.

“Oh, fuck,” he choked out, ineloquent. 

Paul hummed approvingly, his mouth stretching, taking his cock impossibly deep. Patrick was struck by the realization that he could be touching him, and he brought a hand to card through the other man’s hair, still damp from the shower, and Paul _swallowed_ , the muscles of his throat dancing around the aching flesh. Hysterically, Patrick contemplated the very real possibility that he would disappear down that throat and never come back. He made his peace with it.

Paul ran a hand over his thighs, lightly scraped his nails across the skin, the other hand firmly pressing his hip down into the bed, his mouth continuing its steady, relentless task. Then the hand on his thigh moved higher, a question, the mouth paused its inhumanly perfect heat and pressure. Patrick closed the gap of his legs, panicked, and Paul moved his hand back to his thigh, unphased, resuming his mouth’s ministrations, his tongue rubbing a burning, urgent path along the underside of his cock. And it was great, fucking fantastic, honestly, but he felt like he’d missed something. Messed something up. There was a reason people did… that sort of thing, right? But there was also a reason he didn't. Wasn't there? 

Patrick made a decision. He inelegantly grabbed at the other man’s shoulder, and Paul looked up, questioning. He met his eyes, torturously, and widened his legs, feeling terribly exposed. The other man smiled as much as he could smile in his current state, and moved his hand back to its earlier position. The hand that was holding him by the hip disappeared for a moment before returning, anchoring him down.

And then Paul’s finger pushed inside of him, slick and unfamiliar—when had he gotten the lube, that was definitely lube—and the black behind his eyelids went white. The orgasm sliced through his body like a fever simultaneously coming on and breaking. He heard a shrill, keening sound that he realized, distantly, was coming from his own throat. Paul was moaning around him, swallowing his release, and the phrase “little death,” cliché and obvious, burst into his mind in bold text, raised type before gradually sinking down into the warm, sated puddle of his body.

Paul’s mouth released his cock and pulled in a ragged gasp. The hand on his hip tightened and fell slack, and after a few moments, Paul eased back, wiping his mouth, wiping his hand on the bedspread, breathing hard. He collapsed on the bed next to Patrick, one hand in his hair, dragging him in for a deep kiss. Patrick tasted himself on his tongue, which he would admit was kind of hot. 

“I want to see you touch yourself,” he said hoarsely, while he was admitting things. 

“Next time, Bateman. I, uh, don’t think I can go again for a while.”

And Patrick saw, deleriously, that at some point, the other man had finished on the sheets, untouched, a dark spot near his knees, and there was something spectacularly debauched about it. Paul was… really into him. 

“Oh.” 

All at once, Patrick became aware of his own exhaustion, and knew that he wouldn’t have been able to pay adequate attention, anyways. And he wanted to do that. To pay attention. To all kinds of things the other man did. Paul was running his fingers through his hair and sleep was rapidly overtaking him. 

“Paul?” he muttered, before he could think better of it, “I think I might… care. About you.”

“I do, too, Patrick. And I guess I should make it clear that I’m, you know… not fucking anyone else, either.”

“Thanks,” he said, feeling stupid but also mostly unbothered by the stupidity, and the other man laughed, pulling the duvet up to cover them.

“Oh, and Patrick? I was just thinking—you know who else wasn’t fucking Courtney?” Paul paused, his smirk audible, “Luis.”

“Fuck off, Paul,” he mumbled, and soon he fell asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Sooooo this started as a drabble about Patrick Bateman letting Courtney believe they were still together, telling Paul Allen, then freaking out over how gay that meant his life was. And then it turned into straight-up pornography, which I have never actually written. Uh... yeah. This one is much less Brett Easton Ellis-y than my other fics, and is totally devoid of even a hint of murder, but I think it works as a sequel. I have a thing about men in suits and I have a big thing about people coming to terms with their sexuality and starting on a path to being comfortable with themselves! I maintain that Patrick Bateman wouldn't be killing (or imagining killing) anyone if he just went ahead and Did That Gay Shit. I've incorporated things that I'm pretty sure are only in the book, (Luis's move to Arizona, Luis's incognito stalking - my favorite part of the novel) but I went with "Paul Allen" rather than "Paul Owen" because I saw the movie before reading the book and that's what I think of him as.
> 
> anyways, I guess I'm here to be the fucking weirdo who writes fix-its wherein Patrick Bateman hooks up with Paul Allen. uh, how does this seem to just be... my weird thing? at least on here? I could write a scholarly fucking essay about internalized homophobia in American Psycho. 
> 
> Title is from Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads (lol "this is not my beautiful wife!" lol). Thanks for reading :)


End file.
